Your stolen money: Government out of control

For years the federal government has been taking excess entitlement money and spending it elsewhere. Once vehemently denied, Congressmen are now confessing to the act of spending Social Security, Medicare and dozens of other excess contributions that they are not supposed to spend. Entitlement money that is not supposed to be used for anything other than the purpose for which it was collected.

These pirates call it “borrowing.” They make it sound as though they will somehow pay the money back. We’ll let that slide for the moment and take a closer look at what it all means. Bear with me on this, it’s important. First of all, we are not talking about small amounts here. If they were only taking slight overcharges from gas taxes, airport and airways taxes and the like, we might forgive and forget. But instead, we are dealing in hundreds obillions of dollars, soon to be trillions.

Secondly, when the government “borrows” this money, it’s taken directly from the Treasury’s General Fund. Actual cash is never in a trust fund, unless it’s the government’s own Thrift Savings Plan Trust Fund for government employees (their own retirement investment fund). Of the 164 accounts that the government calls “trust funds” only this one is similar to the common understanding of these words as a fiduciary activity entrusted with the stewardship of wealth. The rest are all debit accounts. If they were real trust funds, there wouldn’t be a need for lock-boxes. Real trust funds are lock-boxes.

This misuse of words causes all sorts of confusion. Politicians themselves, many who are not that familiar with how their own Treasury and General Fund operate, tend to think of trust funds as holding real cash. Regardless, accountants know exactly how much Social Security, Medicare and other entitlement money is in the General Fund at any given moment. Department heads, budget and finance committees and even the trust fund trustees get periodic reports of these amounts, as well as estimates of future expected revenue.

Because we are all in the habit of thinking of trust funds the way they exist in the private sector, this little deception allows some of our more crafty politicians to make statements like “trust funds are never raided.” And they are absolutely right. Trust funds are not raided because the money is never there. It’s always in the General Fund where it remains until it’s spent.

Every year, the government “borrows” and spends every last cent of the extra entitlement money we donate and expect services for. It then deposits special obligation nonmarketable bonds in trust funds, under the label of “Federal Debt,” to account for the money taken. Most even call these “IOUs,” further perpetuating the idea that they, themselves, are somehow going to pay this money back.

They then tell everyone that these bonds are the same as Treasury securities sold on the open market except that these bonds cannot be traded. They tell everyone that these bonds are a sound investment, the “safest investment in the world” because they are “backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.” What they don’t tell anyone is that it is only the taxpaying public that can buy these bonds back, redeem them.

Backed by the full faith and credit of the United States means nothing more than backed by every man, woman and child in the country. Backed by everyone who will ever work and pay taxes. The federal government has no other major source of honest revenue.

So, what have we really got here? We’ve got a government that embezzles entitlement payments and spends them wherever it pleases. Then it deposits bonds that can only be redeemed by the very same people who paid the tax in the first place, their children or grandchildren. That’s double taxation, plain and simple. It’s what I call the Pay-It-Again, Sam plan. IOUs were not left behind, they were UOUs.

And the sad fact is that the public would be better off if these bogus bonds never existed. Better off if the politicians just took the money and ran, without trying to substitute these bonds for the money taken. At least then we would not have second payments to make.

It doesn’t matter that the first time you pay these taxes it comes out of your right pocket at the gas pump, airport, paycheck FICA taxes or whatever. And the second time you pay these it will be out of your left pocket in the form of income taxes. It’s still the same people making both payments.

It gets worse. The longer these bonds sit in trust funds that are really debit accounts, the more interest they collect. So, you not only make a double payment for the same service, but you pay interest on top of it. Interest that doesn’t cost the politicians a damned thing because there’s no cash involved. They simply hand the trust fund more bogus bonds every year. More promissory notes that you or your children will have to redeem. Isn’t that nice?

If you can call this “borrowing” then you’re either very short sighted or much more forgiving, tolerant and gracious than I am. I think it would be bending the rules to call it something as nice as extortion and fraud. It’s outright theft.

This act is exactly the same as stealing money from your child’s piggy bank and then leaving a note behind. A note that says your child must replace the cash, with interest-and that you can and will enforce it.

Evil people slipping into your house at night or putting a gun to your head while they rifle your pockets and purses have more integrity than your federal government. At least, they don’t lie to you, or try to trick you into believing that it’s for your own good. Need I remind you of why our forefathers threw tea into Boston Harbor?

Think about this when you see that the Social Security Trust Fund has topped $1 trillion this year. Think about all the prescription drugs that could have been purchased with the quarter trillion in bogus bonds in the Medicare Trust Fund. Think about this when you hear politicians talk about all the good things they’re going to do for your children. Think about it when they brag about the “surplus” they’ve accumulated and how much it’s going to add up to in the near future. Think about this when you go to the polls instead of your gun cabinet.

With very few exceptions, we should be getting rid of all of these crooks. Every one of them knows exactly what they are doing to you. When are you going to do something about it???

Ed Henry

Ed Henry is the founder of TUFF, the Taxpayers Union, and a regular columnist for Ether Zone.
Ed Henry can be reached at [email protected]
... More »

You might find interesting...

The world of VPNs has become a gimmicky, seedy one over the years as new tech startups swamp the marketplace with lackluster service and interfaces that never fail to disappoint. As one of the only VPNs still working with Netflix, ExpressVPN has taken the spot... More »

Has American foreign policy been hijacked by a Cabal that has the ear of the President and is able to effectively override such conventional government institutions as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)? New Yorker ... More »